Class AnalysisFilms

Zoë Kravitz's directorial debut, a psychological thriller starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum. Following cocktail waitress Frida who is invited to tech billionaire Slater King's private island vacation, only to discover the men on the island are plotting sinister activities. The film deeply explores crucial issues including power abuse, sexual violence, collective trauma, female solidarity, and elite corruption, showcasing women's awakening and resistance when facing systemic oppression.

A romantic comedy-drama directed by Sean Baker, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Mikey Madison stars as sex worker Ani who falls in love and impulsively marries Vanya, the son of a Russian oligarch, before facing fierce opposition from his family's forces. With its authentic, nuanced performances and sharp social critique, the film deeply explores crucial issues including sex worker rights, class differences, economic inequality, and women's survival struggles in capitalist society.

Adapted from Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux's autobiographical novel, following a 23-year-old French university student's desperate and dangerous journey seeking abortion in 1960s France when it was illegal. Directed by Audrey Diwan, this award-winning film deeply explores reproductive autonomy, body politics, class inequality, and women's predicament in patriarchal society, becoming a powerful testimony to contemporary women's rights struggles.

An adaptation of Jane Austen's novel directed by Autumn de Wilde, starring Anya Taylor-Joy. The film follows wealthy young woman Emma Woodhouse in Regency-era England as she enthusiastically matchmakes for others, discovering her own true emotions in the process. The director reinterprets this classic literary work with exquisite visual aesthetics and a modern feminist perspective, deeply exploring important themes including female independence, class consciousness, marriage choices, and coming-of-age awakening.

A crime comedy-drama directed by Lorene Scafaria, starring Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu. Based on true events, following a group of strippers who band together to scam wealthy Wall Street clients after the 2008 financial crisis. The film deeply explores crucial issues including class revenge, female solidarity, economic inequality, sex worker rights, and the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on working-class women, presenting a complex story of how marginalized women seek survival and fight back in economic hardship.

Writer and director Alfonso Cuarón has described Roma as a love letter to all the women who raised him. It's a beautiful rumination on all the 'hoods' women go through: girlhood, womanhood, motherhood. A domestic drama about a maid and the middle-class family she cares for in Mexico City, the story is told in crisp black-and-white, but it doesn't take long to see that a woman's work never ventures far out of the gray area.

Director Kelly Reichardt recruits Michelle Williams for her character study mapping out the evolution of homelessness and destitution. With nothing but her pup Lucy, Williams's Wendy fights to survive in a recession-era landscape. Like all of Reichardt's characters, she is flawed, willful, and above all, strong.

A "way existential" 1990s time capsule of fashion, pop culture, and Valley girl verbiage, Amy Heckerling's rom-com riff on Jane Austen's Emma celebrates female friendship and sexuality, and it puts a woman's self-fulfillment above finding a man. Even if "fulfillment" technically includes finding a man.